Milky Way

A green and red Perseidmeteor streaks across the sky just below the Milky Way in August 2007.

Infrared image of the core of the Milky Way Galaxy

The galactic center in the direction of Sagittarius. The primary stars of Sagittarius are indicated in red.

"Laser towards the Milky Way". Despite the first impression of a science-fiction movie, this extraordinary image is of recent cutting-edge research. It was taken at the high-altitude Paranal Observatory in Chile. The laser reaches 90 km into the Earth's mesosphere to form a reference point. It helps sharper observations of phenomena such as the giant black hole at the centre of the galaxy.